In his piece on the reactionary nature of the president’s policies, Fred Barnes reminds us just how much Democrats have increased spending under their watch:
Since his rebuke in last Novem-ber’s election, the president has talked up deficit reduction. His new plan, he says, will shrink the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. The Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee, which has far more credibility than Obama on budget numbers, says the “actual deficit reduction” is $1.4 trillion, none of it from spending cuts. The Obama plan would leave federal spending at 24 percent of GDP in 2021, the staff said, “a stunning 18 percent increase in the size of government relative to the historical average.” And it would add $9.7 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.
Emphasis added. The federal government doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
If the president is serious about deficit reduction, he’ll put forward — or at least sign onto — a plan that reduces federal spending to levels closer to the historical average.
Jonathan Alter (late of Newsweek) was chatting with Mark Simone (radio talk show host) recently about Obama’s approach to overwhelming the recession with deficit spending.
Simone remarked that the country is already broke. Alter was very animated in replying that the country is NOT broke and can not be considered broke as long as it can continue to borrow money.
Using the “Alter Rule” as the joker in the deck, Obama is not finished until the ability of the government to sustain itself is finished. This is the rule and role of the termite colony. As long as there is any foundation left to destroy, there is no end in sight for the colony.
New EPA Regulations will require 230,000 new EPA bureaucrats to implement. Some idiots might be gratified that these new public sector bureaucrats will somewhat offset the massive job destruction they will cause in the private sector; and that’s why they are idiots.
Indeed. At least 230,000 private sector jobs will be destroyed (or stillborn) just in paying for their offices, salaries and benefits; probably more. And *then* we will get to the millions of jobs destroyed (or stillborn) by their intended activity.
But there’s more! Because after they have swelled the debt to the point (which approaches) where no one in his right mind would lend to them, they can still -print- money! (‘borrowing’ from the Fed)
So you see Heliotrope, it need never end. Obama the Lightworker brings heaven on earth, and in heaven, it’s Christmas every day! He and Bernanke will always be able to give people more from their ‘stash’! I love Big Government, because it’s the perfect Mommy-Daddy-Santa who will supply us all forever with food, housing, purpose, drugs, toys and lube! No one need work, produce or save! Krugman says so!
ILC,
I just don’t have the stomach to believe that the punched-drunk left has been so sucker-punched that they will go full Weimar Republic hyperinflation on us.
Mind you, I know in my heart of hearts that they are completely capable of it and willing to throw in hobnailed boots for good measure. I just don’t have the stomach for trying to fight such obvious, overwrought, malevolent, smug, elitist chicanery.
Obama is the typical marauder who gets his stash squared away and then goes on a crop burning spree to show the peasants how much he disdains them. His whole head tilt is a necessary position when you are bound and determined to look down your nose on people. God help us when the welfare class can be molified with just being allowed to cut in on the bread line.
If Newsweek were still around,* they could publish an issue with a cover declaring: We Are All Cubans Now.
[(*) The Newsweek rag is always just one day away from the dumpster of publication super failures.]
Heliotrope, not sure I follow. You know that lefties are capable of full-on Weimar inflation (and National Socialism). But… you *hope* they won’t take us there?
To be serious:, Krugman and other lefties have stated that the U.S. can borrow as much as it ever wants because, if we ever have trouble servicing the debt, we can print the money. They have called for much higher deficits and money-printing “stimulus”. So yeah, they’ll go there – if they aren’t stopped.
The Fed’s new “Operation Twist” is ominous. (Their program to buy longer-term government bonds, despite the fact that said bonds presently pay negative real interest, i..e. are guaranteed to lose real value over time.)
Weimar Germany had a pattern remarkably like ours. They had economic troubles, high structural debt and deficit, high unemployment, a government willing to print money, and a socialist-leaning populace that sat back and said “Oh look, no inflation! It’s not turning to inflation!” because at first, people wanted to hold more cash. Until one month, it all changed. A tipping point was reached where people realized that the national currency had been turned into a lie, and they had better spend their cash on real goods, before their neighbor did.
Part of the tipping point was… when their central bank had bought a lot of longer-term government bonds at negative real interest rates. It’s technical, it’s not anything that the ordinary person would monitor consciously. But it has to do with the idea of debasing the currency. A fiat currency is much like a share in the assets of the issuing bank (the central bank). If the central bank’s assets tank, the currency is implicitly worth less. If the central bank buys depreciating assets with its new currency, knowingly as a matter of policy, then the currency is hosed – it just takes people time to realize it. Again, ordinary people would not monitor something so technical, and yet, by some instinct, they eventually know when a currency has been compromised – and dump it, en masse. That’s hyperinflation.
Obama is not interested in reducing the deficit; it’s all talk. He wants more government spending for his Marxist Utopia. No one is buying Obama’s deficit reduction given all he;s talking about is tax increases. Obama seems unaware he’s turned into 1984 presidential candidate, Walter Mondale.
Something I think is interesting about the comparison is that it takes politics out of it – to some degree at least. That is, one can compare a given administration, be it Republican or Democrat, to the historical number and thus try to have a good discussion about the spending trend without comparing the incumbent to his predecessor. Even if one like Obama, it’s helpful to be able to compare the spending to the historical average as a means of critical analysis.
Here is another ‘figure’ to bear in mind as the budget debate resumes: Treasury Secretary Geithner, who recently admitted that he is a con man – someone who takes short-term advantage of investors’ misplaced confidence. Defending Obama’s new borrow-and-spend plan, he said:
Economist Franz Pick once called government bonds “certificates of guaranteed confiscation”, because when the government pays you back years later in newly-created money (that buys you less), it has just ripped you off. Anyone who lends to the government (i.e. buys a bond) for 10 years at <2% interest, or 30 years at 3%, is a sucker.